Apple Economy's 'Fiscal Cliff' Saved by AT&T's Checkbook

Written by: Antoine Gara11/08/12 - 9:59 AM EST

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NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- In the wake of Barack Obama's re-election as president of the United States, lawmakers like Republican House majority leader John Boehner and Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid took to airwaves to show Americans that Congress will work to bridge a partisan budget divide and avert a so-called 'fiscal cliff' scheduled for early 2013.

Less heralded on Wednesday was telecom giant AT&T's announcement of a blockbuster capital spending plan, which will stimulate an array of tech, telecom and infrastructure sectors and forestall the prospect that falling corporate spending will slow a booming wireless economy driven by the Apple iPhone and Google-Android powered devices.

At a telecom conference in New York City, AT&T said it will boost corporate spending to $22 billion a year through 2015 to improve its wireless service and upgrade wireline and fiber networks. The move comes at a time when carriers like AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and a recently merged MetroPCS - T-Mobile are in an expensive fight to upgrade wireless networks to meet surging data demand from smartphones and tablets.

While AT&T's higher than expected spending plan was seen by John Hodulik of UBS as depressing its forecasted earnings, the company also upped its quarterly dividend to 45 cents a share, in a set of announcements that failed to impress investors.

Still, AT&T's plan is seen as returning wireless sector spending to growth from forecasts of a decline starting in 2013, and analysts and investors expect it can drive the earnings of Juniper Networks, Ciena and Qualcomm, which provide infrastructure and parts to the smartphone economy pioneered by Apple.

An increasing dedication to wireless service improvements is also expected to directly benefit handset makers like Apple, who are relying on carriers to provide data service that will further tether consumers to their smartphone and tablet devices.

Currently, 64% of AT&T's postpaid wireless customers are using smartphones, calculates Garcha, who notes that Wednesday's announcement signals AT&T "continues to expect strong smartphone penetration and adoption of data plans to be a driver of wireless growth." He forecasts AT&T will reach 90% smartphone penetration among postpaid subscribers by 2015, given that they account for 80% of new handset sales.

Dallas-based AT&T will spend $8 billion a year to continue expanding its 4G wireless network, which the company says will reach 300 million people by 2014. AT&T will spend an additional $6 billion on wireline equipment that serves business customers.

Tal Liani, an analyst with Bank of America Merrill Lynch, highlights Ciena, Juniper Networks and Qualcomm as the the biggest beneficiaries of the billions in annual wireless and wireline network spending AT&T now forecasts.

"We believe Juniper and Ciena could be prime beneficiaries from AT&T's spending boost, given the required investment in core network, aggregation and management equipment," writes Liani of AT&T's announcement.

"Such spending could have a significant impact on their financials and both stocks have been under pressure recently due to weak carrier capex. Qualcomm is an indirect beneficiary, with AT&T's announcement likely to drive Verizon and T-Mobile to push harder with their LTE roll outs," the analyst adds.

Qualcomm recently beat earnings as smartphone and tablet demand drove revenue. Canaccord Genuity analysts project over 700 million smartphones will be sold globally in 2012, an over 44% annual growth rate that's expected to slow to 35.4% in 2013, according to a report put out by the firm.